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Comment by coding123 | Hacker News Reader

So notch owners... what happens when you watch a video full screen.. do you just miss out on the pixels in the notch area?

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The screen is sized such that the area below the notch is the standard 16x10 macs have used for a long time. You can think of it as having the same displays we’ve always had. In contexts where the active application knows how to deal with the notch, it basically operates as if you’ve reclaimed some of the space in the top bezel. When the active application doesn’t know how to deal with it (full screen apps that don’t declare they’re willing to deal with the notch), the top just stays dark and you have a regular-sized bezel.

The display has really good contrast, and you wouldn’t be able to tell it’s not just the bezel. I legitimately can barely see it even when I’m trying to.

Yea, it's a 16x10.4 display. If you're watching 16x9 content, it didn't stretch vertically on old Macs that were 16x10 either. On this screen, it just doesn't come close to the notch. If you're doing full-screen with something that doesn't have a Mac menu bar, it just uses the display area under the notch so you don't see any notch.

I like that they basically put the menu bar and the webcam in the same space. It means I have more vertical space for the rest of my stuff. Is it perfect? I'd love a camera that could be invisibly embedded under a display and still work perfectly, but I'd also love to be able to teleport. It seems like a good engineering compromise to make something that works well. Really, the new MacBook Pros are just amazing in ways I'd resigned myself to putting up with Apple being annoying. No more touch-bar, giant escape key, emoji key, ports, and not trying to shave every tiny bit of weight/size when doing so would compromise usability. They even went with a 20% larger battery for the 14" and the 12% sharper display isn't transformative, but it's a nice upgrade.

The notch is a good use of otherwise wasted space, at least for me.

Some phones have under screen cameras. Teleportation is a different matter…

The un-notched (and un-rounded) portion of the screen has the same dimensions as the previous screen, so the notch is only taken out of additional pixels added to the top. In practice, it's more of a dedicated menu bar area than part of the regular screen (it just goes black if there's no menu bar to display).

I dislike the notch as much as the next guy, but they started with a 16:10 display and actually ADDED pixels on top around the camera. In this case, you're not losing ANY pixels due to the notch. Videos should play just fine given that most are 16:9 or wider.

exactly, everyone focuses on the notch. this is why the notch is totally worth it. I would not trade the notch for a smaller screen.

You're not really gaining them either. In full screen, apps are basically the same as they were previously since the top notch bar becomes blacked out. In regular mode, they've increased the vertical height of the menu bar to match the notch, so there's what, a handful of pixels gained there?

It depends on the player, but usually the top of the video is aligned with the bottom of the notch.

This has been my experience. Really the notch is far less distracting than I thought it would be. I think the one thing that bothers me the most about it is that they made the menu bar slightly bigger so it is visible under the bottom of the notch rather than perfectly aligning to it. Still not as annoying as the garbage palm rejection.

garbage palm rejection? i think it's great. have never had an issue with it.

The area below the notch is 16:10, so your typical 16:9 video content is letterboxed and won't even touch the bottom of the notch

How many 16:10.4 aspect ratio videos do you think there are in the world?

There is presumably some handling of 4:3 or "vertical videos" though, would be interesting to know what it is

It just letterboxes to the 16:10 rectangular part of the display.

Not for a Mac yet, but I just got a phone with a notch for the first time a few months ago, and I actually find myself frequently using VLC's option to expand the video into the notch area. That near the edge of most frames, there's rarely anything of import to risk concealing, and there's something enjoyably Star Trek about watching a video on a round-cornered handheld display.

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